A Lit Journal a Day
by Lumos314
Summary: A few unrelated oneshots based off of something to do with my British Literature language arts class. Be prepared for anything from random scenes that include all my vocab words, to parallels of short stories featuring our favorite attorneys, to pieces that echo a common theme.
1. An Objectionable Proverb

**Author's Note:** So, at the beginning of this school year, my language arts teacher decided to have us write a response/reflection/journal-y thing every day of school, for the rest of the year. I kinda freaked out, since I'm terrible at consistency. (Which I'm sure you've noticed if you've read any of my other stories.) I'm still trying to get used to it. On the upside, though, he said it would be alright if I wrote fanfics for some of them! Whoop! So that's what this story is going to be. Anytime that I have a prompt that I think is possible to write in a fanfic, I'll do that and post it here. Enjoy! :D

Oh, and for my story wide disclaimer: I don't own Ace Attorney or any of the characters or anything.

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**An Objectionable Proverb**

**POV: **_Miles Edgeworth_

**Prompt: **_Pick one of William Blake's __"Proverbs from Hell"__ from _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_ and explain it.__  
_

**Context:** _Edgeworth, Kay, Gumshoe, Franziska, and Lang have tracked down a criminal to Gatewater Mall, and are searching fruitlessly for the USB he stole from the US government._

**Notes:** _I chose "If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise" as my proverb. It seems to fit a certain prosecutor well, huh? ;D Also, I apologize for the ending...I know it's lackluster, and I couldn't figure out how to conclude the whole thing._

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_Why do I always have to get these cases?_ I shoved aside still more plastic balls, desperately hoping Kay wouldn't pull out her camera phone. It wouldn't do to have a picture of me standing in the children's ball pit at Gatewater Mall.

There was, of course, a legitimate reason for my being there. A week ago, an undercover agent had stolen confidential defense plans from the military, along with a recently developed poison. While Franziska and Agent Lang were searching for him, he used that toxin in the seemingly random murder of a young woman who lived nearby. Gumshoe and I were assigned to that case, and, of course, Kay had insisted on helping us. Once the connection between the two incidents had been established, the five of us worked together to find the suspect, and cornered him in the mall. At the moment, Lang's subordinates were surrounding the area, and a few were searching the seven-floored building for his whereabouts. That left just the five of us to search the ball pit, where we deduced the killer had thrown the USB containing the critical stolen plans. So far, however, there was no sign of it.

I sighed as a ball whizzed over my head. "Kay, we're here to investigate, not play."

"Aww." She pouted, dropping the ball in her hand. "I can't have even a little fun?"

"As long as it includes actually searching, feel free."

She groaned. "We've been at it for over an hour, though!"

"And we'll be continuing until we find that flash drive."

"Whose idea was this, anyway?" she grumbled. I was about to answer when Franziska, now wading towards us, spoke up.

"Lang's. It seems to be nothing more than pure foolishness, however, spawned by foolish desperation and hope rather than logic. It would have made more sense to join his subordinates in their search, and then have them help us here."

"Heh. Wasn't this a group decision, sis? You seemed to think it was 'perfect' when we started looking." He, too, was making his way over. Only Gumshoe was still searching, happily digging through the balls in the corner while softly humming to himself.

Franziska readied her whip while I backed up slowly, trying to surreptitiously get out of range. "That may have been true. However, after only a few minutes the foolishness of this plan was clear. It is nothing more than a fool's plan, and to continue would be a foolish idea more foolish than those of a certain, foolish defense attorney."

Lang smirked. "Lang Zi says: 'If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.'" _I'm pretty sure that wasn't Lang Zi._

"How could foolishness of this degree ever reach perfection?"

Lang tilted his head, gesturing with his arm. "I never said it would be perfect. Only wise."

"Explain this so-called wisdom, then." Her hand twitched, and I moved faster.

"Fine. Once we find that USB, won't this seem like a great idea? We'll all be glad we hadn't just joined my subordinates, since they'll still be searching."

"Hmm… He does have a point." Kay chimed in. Franziska glared at her in return, but, thankfully, her whip didn't strike.

"That conclusion is simply more foolishness. We will still have foolishly wasted over an hour of searching that could have been used to find the culprit."

"I wasn't done yet. There's also the fact that the girlie and Mr. Prosecutor over there haven't been trained in how to properly detain a suspect. And I don't think either of us have much confidence in that oafish detective."

Franziska grimaced, relaxing her hands. "I suppose I must admit that I agree with the latter statement. The chances of Scruffy competently making an arrest are similar to those of Little Brother watching a children's show." I cleared my throat and looked away. _Well…_

She tensed again, not ready to admit defeat. "However, that doesn't change the fact that this foolishness will not ever seem wise."

At that moment, there was a loud "WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!" from the other side of the pit, and Gumshoe came barrelling over. "I found it, pals! I found the flash drive!" There was, indeed, a small, red object in his hand, and all of us held our breath. On his way over, however, he tripped and fell, the USB flying out of his grasp. Everyone gasped as it flew into the air and arced towards the hard floor, too far away to catch it in time.

Then there was a sharp crack and before we could blink it was safely in Franziska's hand. _Huh, maybe that whip is useful for something after all._ "Perhaps something useful did come out of this search."

Lang's response wiped the smirk off her face. "Told you."

The noise she made was something close to a growl, and there was another crack as I felt a sharp pain on my arm. "Nghaaa! What was that all about?!"

She glared. "Had I aimed at him, he would have simply caught it." _And how, exactly, does that make me the target?!_ I glared at Kay, who was clearly stifling laughter.

Though, I had to smirk when Franziska opened her hand and the flash drive was split into two halves.


	2. Proofreading Magic

**Author's Note:** This... was supposed to be up a lot sooner. And I am supposed to be writing more of these. As it is, I've been so crunched for time on these assignments that I barely have time to write anything, much less put effort into a fanfic. Hopefully, though, I'll be able to do more with them in the coming weeks!

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**Proofreading Magic**

**POV: **_Apollo Justice_

**Prompt: **_Language__  
_

**Context:** _Apollo is working on paperwork, only to be interrupted with a favor for Trucy._

**Notes:** _Writing about language is hard. It's such a vague prompt that I didn't even know what to do with it. So here's my attempt.__  
_

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"Hey, Polly." My magician friend bounced up to me, a sheet of paper in her hand that was the same sky blue as her top hat and cape.

"Hi, Trucy," I responded. "What do you need?"

"Could you _pleeeeease_ proofread my new flier for the magic show?" She grinned, somehow managing to give me puppy dog eyes along with her smile, which I hadn't realized was possible. _Then again, it's Trucy. Anything is possible with her._

I looked at the tower of paperwork next to me, and almost said no, but another glance at her face made me crumble. "Alright. Hand it over."

Her eyes smiled, now, too. "Thanks, Polly!"

"Yup." I read through the flier carefully, marking things here and there. She waited patiently, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Okay, here you go." I smiled as she looked it over. "It looks neat, but you should probably work on your spelling."

"Yeah...I guess you're right. I even misspelled 'Troupe Gramarye!'" Her fist tapped the brim of her hat as she stuck her tongue out slightly.

"I think people would be disappointed if they came to watch a 'troop' of soldiers and only found some magicians." I smirked.

After giving me a pointed look, she sighed. "Why is it even spelled like that, anyway? It doesn't make any sense!"

"English _is_ a pretty crazy language," I said. "I talked to Machi they other day; they're teaching him in prison, and he says he's having trouble."

"Well, yeah! I have trouble with it still, and I've been learning it for sixteen years!"

"Heh, clearly."

She frowned, hands on her hips. "Hey, it wasn't that bad!"

"...Trucy, you spelled 'magic' with an 'x' ."

"...Okay, maybe it was that bad." She finally just put the paper on my desk - or, rather, the mess that was covering my desk - and flopped onto the arm of my chair. "Really, though, why does our language have to be so messed up?!"

I sighed, holding her shoulder to try and stop her fidgeting. It didn't work, and the chair wobbled around as I said, "You didn't let me finish earlier. Machi also says that Borginian is harder, though. It's like Japanese, where each symbol stands for a word, but their grammar is really complex and doesn't have much structure. Plus, the pronunciations are just as wild and unpredictable as they are in English. He tried to teach me even a little bit, and I couldn't make it past 'I'm Apollo Justice.'"

"Wow. Maybe our language isn't as bad as I thought." She shifted one last time, before saying, "Hey, Polly. Wanna see a new trick?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

"Yay!"

She had a gleam in her eye that I recognized, so I added, "As long as it's not dangerous, and doesn't involve weapons, fire, or public humiliation."

"Don't worry! I promise it won't be bad." Her grin was a little too wide, but I leaned back in my chair and waited, pushing back the wave of dread.

"Here you go!" She handed me the flier again, this time folded in half.

"Is that it?"

"Yup! Look at it!" She finally got to the point where she couldn't contain her energy any longer, and stood up so she could bounce on the balls of her feet.

I opened the page, which looked perfectly normal. "There's nothing here."

She looked at me, hands on her hips again. "Polly! That's the point!"

It hit me then, like a ton of bricks. "Wait, all the spelling is fixed!" _And I call myself a lawyer…_

"Yeah! Isn't it cool!"

"Heh, nice." I smiled. After another moment, though, the implications caught up with me. "Hey, you had everything spelled right all along, didn't you?!"

"Well, I did go and ask Daddy to read it first, if that's what you mean. He helped me with most of the problems."

I flopped. "So you just wasted a half hour of the time I could have used to finish this paperwork?"

"Yup!" _How can she smile so innocently even now?_

I sighed. "Guess what you're going to be doing?"

And that's how Trucy spent the next hour writing "Apollo Justice" about 200 times.


End file.
